Texas Monthly.

Hey there, I'm John Spong with Texas Monthly magazine, and this is One by Willie, a podcast in which I talk each week to one notable Willie Nelson fan about one Willie song that they really love.

This week, six-time Grammy winner John Leventhal, a virtuoso guitarist and one of the leading Americana record producers,

talks about the 1975 song that broke Willie's career wide open, Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain. Now, casual music

listeners will probably know John Best from two iconic 90s pop hits that he had a huge hand in,

Mark Cone's Walking in Memphis, and Sean Colvin's Sonny came home, as well as his collaborations

with his wife, Roseanne Cash, like her landmark albums

The Wheel and the River and the Thread. But with us, he's going to focus on Blue Eyes, the song

he says first clued him into the genius of Willie, before describing what it was like to be a young

picker working with Hall of Fame session players on Willie's Pivotal 1993 album across the borderline

and then explaining why he thinks of Willie

is a cross between Grady Martin and Pablo Picasso

and his late father-in-law Johnny Cash

is a cross between Elvis and Abe Lincoln.

So let's do it.

Hey, it's art.

Yeah. So let's do it. Hey, it's art. Where we start? Where we start is, what's we start is what's so cool about blue eyes crying in the rain? Well, you know, when I was approached about doing this, of course it's like choosing my favorite of any artist that I've been moved by is always challenging because I tend I'm not really wired

to have favorites. It's just, it's kind of all in the stew. But I realized, and for a minute I was

going to pick three days because I just kind of, I just kind of love that song. And, you know,

it's just a great, you know, Texas, Ray Texas Ray Price shuffle, but it's got a cool twist on it, both

musically and lyrically.

But then when I really, I went one step deeper, I realized that the Red-Headed Stranger

...